WELCOME TO THE CFZ BLOG NETWORK: COME AND JOIN THE FUN

Half a century ago, Belgian Zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans first codified cryptozoology in his book On the Track of Unknown Animals.

The Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) are still on the track, and have been since 1992. But as if chasing unknown animals wasn't enough, we are involved in education, conservation, and good old-fashioned natural history! We already have three journals, the largest cryptozoological publishing house in the world, CFZtv, and the largest cryptozoological conference in the English-speaking world, but in January 2009 someone suggested that we started a daily online magazine! The CFZ bloggo is a collaborative effort by a coalition of members, friends, and supporters of the CFZ, and covers all the subjects with which we deal, with a smattering of music, high strangeness and surreal humour to make up the mix.

It is edited by CFZ Director Jon Downes, and subbed by the lovely Lizzy Bitakara'mire (formerly Clancy), scourge of improper syntax. The daily newsblog is edited by Corinna Downes, head administratrix of the CFZ, and the indexing is done by Lee Canty and Kathy Imbriani. There is regular news from the CFZ Mystery Cat study group, and regular fortean bird news from 'The Watcher of the Skies'. Regular bloggers include Dr Karl Shuker, Dale Drinnon, Richard Muirhead and Richard Freeman.The CFZ bloggo is updated daily, and there's nothing quite like it anywhere else. Come and join us...

Search This Blog

WATCH OUR MONTHLY WEBtv SHOW

SUPPORT OTT ON PATREON

Click on this logo to find out more about helping CFZtv and getting some smashing rewards...

SIGN UP FOR OUR MONTHLY NEWSLETTER

Unlike some of our competitors we are not going to try and blackmail you into donating by saying that we won't continue if you don't. That would just be vulgar, but our lives, and those of the animals which we look after, would be a damn sight easier if we receive more donations to our fighting fund. Donate via Paypal today...

Saturday, March 29, 2014

A word about cryptolinks: we are not responsible for the content of cryptolinks, which are merely links to outside articles that we think are interesting (sometimes for the wrong reasons), usually posted up without any comment whatsoever from me.

TASMANIAN tiger hunter Mike Williams is confident evidence of a living thylacine will emerge sooner rather than later because of the growing popularity of crash cameras in cars.

Mr Williams, who led an international team of naturalists searching for the thylacine last year, has urged Tasmanian motorists to invest in the technology.

“If you live in an area where you think thylacines have been seen, then crash-test cameras are the go,” Mr Williams said.

Mr Williams, who is from New South Wales, has returned to Tasmania to gather more thylacine information and is cruising around the North-East and North-West with one of the digital video cameras attached to his car.

He is interviewing about a dozen people who say they have seen the thylacine, including farmers, trappers and motorists.

Mr Williams is also going over archival evidence and camping in areas where thylacines are likely to be, looking for evidence in situ.

“I believe they are still out there,” he said.

He said Tasmanian trappers had provided him with extremely reliable accounts of seeing multiple thylacines in the mid-1980s.

Many other sightings have been from motorists driving around the bush at dusk and night, including one from only 16 months ago.

“Post 1950, a large percentage of the sightings have been made by people in cars at night,” Mr Williams said. “That’s why crash-test camera technology on cars is so important.”

Mr Williams said the decline in the number of Tasmanian devils would have boosted the population of surviving thylacines, providing a greater window of opportunity for evidence of the animal’s existence.

What has Corinna's column of fortean bird news got to do with Cryptozoology?Well, everything actually!In an article for the first edition of Cryptozoology Bernard Heuvelmans wrote that cryptozoology is the study of 'unexpected animals' and following on from that perfectly reasonable assertion, it seems to us that whereas the study of out-of-place birds may not have the glamour of the hunt for bigfoot or lake monsters, it is still a perfectly valid area for the Fortean zoologist to be interested in.

Today has been notable for only one thing so far:
the syndrome that everything I have attempted has taken infinitely longer than I
had envisaged. We have had a houseful of intelligent young people working under
Saskia's tutelage to refurbish the conservatory, and they have made a lot of
progress. But there's lots more to do before it is open for visitors. I am
letting the children choose what we exhibit there (within reason, as I still
remember an 18 year old Olivia trying to wheedle me into having a tapir), and I
think that their choices are sensible and interesting ones. I have no idea
whether the museum roof will be fixed this year in time for us to get it ready
for visitors, so the most interesting things are being brought down to the
conservatory pro tempore. We are getting there slowly.

The new issue of Gonzo Weekly, in its swish new
format, will be out imminently features interviews with Andy Colquhoun and
Cyrille Verdeaux, a new video from Auburn, news from Acid Mothers Temple and the
Dalai Lama. There are also features on Rocket Scientists, Clepsydra's private
show, what happens when The Psychedelic Warlords collaborate with Michael
Moorcock and a look at music written by Jews who died in the death
camps.

The current issue is still available featuring Tim
Blake, Craig High from the Psychedelic Warlords, Cyrille Verdeaux goes native,
plus Acid Mothers Temple, Joey Molland remembers working with John, George and
Ringo, Mice on Stilts, Steve Hillage and more news, reviews, views, interviews
and and London Zoos (OK, no metropolitan menageries, but I got carried away with
things that rhymed with OOOOS) than you can shake a stick at. And the best part
is IT's ABSOLUTELY FREE!!! We are also relaunching with a brand new layout and
format for our 70th issue. We hope that you like it.

PS: If you are already a subscriber but think that
you haven't been receiving your copies please check your spam filters. For some
reason known only to the Gods of the internet, some e-mail programmes
automatically count the magazine as 'spam' probably because it comes from a mass
mailer. Either that or they are just jealous of our peerless
content

PPS: WARNING: If you are If you are a subscriber
using Outlook, Hotmail or Outlook Express, some notifications and previous
issues of the magazine may come out with formatting errors.

* The Gonzo Daily is a two way process. If you have any news or want
to write for us, please contact me at jon@eclipse.co.uk. If you are an artist and
want to showcase your work, or even just say hello please write to me at gonzo@cfz.org.uk. Please copy, paste and
spread the word about this magazine as widely as possible. We need people to
read us in order to grow, and as soon as it is viable we shall be invading more
traditional magaziney areas. Join in the fun, spread the word, and maybe if we
all chant loud enough we CAN stop it raining. See you tomorrow...

* The
Gonzo Daily is - as the name implies - a daily online magazine (mostly) about
artists connected to the Gonzo Multimedia group of companies. But it also has
other stuff as and when the editor feels like it. The same team also do a weekly
newsletter called - imaginatively - The Gonzo Weekly. Find out about it at this
link: www.gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/11/all-gonzo-news-wots-fit-to-print.html

* We should probably mention here, that some of our posts are links to
things we have found on the internet that we think are of interest. We are not
responsible for spelling or factual errors in other people's websites. Honest
guv!

* Jon Downes, the Editor of all these ventures (and several
others) is an old hippy of 54 who - together with an orange kitten named after a
song by Frank Zappa puts it all together from a converted potato shed in a
tumbledown cottage deep in rural Devon which he shares with various fish, and
sometimes a small Indian frog. He is ably assisted by his lovely wife Corinna,
his bulldog/boxer Prudence, his elderly mother-in-law, and a motley collection
of social malcontents. Plus.. did we mention the orange kitten?

The hunt for British Big Cats attracts far more newspaper-column inches than any other cryptozoological subject. There are so many of them now that we feel that they should be archived by us in some way, so we are publishing a regular round-up of the stories as they come in. The worldwide mystery cat phenomenon (or group of phenomena, if we are to be more accurate) is not JUST about cryptozoology. At its most basic level it is about the relationship between our species and various species of larger cat. That is why sometimes you will read stories here that appear to have nothing to do with cryptozoology but have everything to do with human/big cat interaction. As committed Forteans, we believe that until we understand the nature of these interactions, we have no hope of understanding the truth that we are seeking.

Yesterday’s News
Todayhttp://cryptozoologynews.blogspot.com/On this day in 1948 psychic
researcher Harry Price died. Price is best known for his investigation of the
haunting of Borley Rectory, which was reputed to be the most haunted house in
England.And now the news: